Megan Huntsman was born on 26 February 1975 and grew up in Pleasant Grove, Utah, as the eldest child of a family supported by her father, an industrial painter, and her mother, who worked at a grocery store and took on other jobs. Raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she had become inactive in church life by the time of her arrest according to relatives. Huntsman attended Pleasant Grove High School, where she met Darren West, the man she would later marry in April 1993, shortly after turning 18.

The marriage between Huntsman and West quickly deteriorated into substance abuse and domestic instability. Both reportedly struggled with methamphetamine use; West was later convicted on meth‑related charges and imprisoned between 2006 and 2014. Despite the chaotic relationship, the couple had multiple children together. Three of their children were born alive and remained living at the time of Huntsman’s 2014 arrest. 

Between 1996 and 2006, Megan Huntsman murdered six of her newborn children immediately after birth. According to her own admissions, she used strangulation or suffocation as the methods of killing. After each birth, she wrapped the infants’ bodies, placed them into plastic bags, and hid them inside cardboard boxes in the garage of her Pleasant Grove home. One additional infant found in the garage was later determined to have been stillborn and not intentionally killed.

The crimes came to light on 12 April 2014 when her ex‑husband Darren West, newly released from prison, began cleaning out the garage of the Pleasant Grove home he once shared with Huntsman. While moving boxes, West discovered a small white box wrapped in plastic containing the decomposed remains of a baby. Horrified, he immediately contacted police. During questioning, Huntsman initially claimed she had hidden a stillborn baby but soon admitted there were multiple infants, at one point saying “eight or nine” and confessing she had “choked” them after delivery.

DNA tests confirmed the murdered infants were West’s children, though he reportedly had no knowledge of the pregnancies. Authorities concluded that Huntsman killed the newborns because she “didn’t want the babies” and was heavily addicted to methamphetamine at the time. In one instance, she told police she committed a murder while her husband and her siblings were inside the house watching television.

On 12 February 2015, Huntsman pleaded guilty to six counts of felony murder in a Utah County courtroom. On 20 April 2015, she was sentenced to six terms of five years‑to‑life in prison, with three terms to be served consecutively and three concurrently — effectively ensuring she will spend decades in prison. She is currently incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility.